


Giving Him Space

by Bluewolf458



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Community: sentinel_thurs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-13
Updated: 2017-01-13
Packaged: 2018-09-17 07:17:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9311216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bluewolf458/pseuds/Bluewolf458
Summary: Blair feels that he has to give Jim more space so every now and then he goes out every night for a while.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-slash rather than slash. Written for the Sentinel Thursday prompt 'social'

Giving Him Space

by  Bluewolf

Jim sighed as he settled in the couch facing the television set, squirming slightly to get into just the right position for maximum comfort.

Not even to himself would he admit that he was lonely. His social life was non-existent. Unlike Blair's, which seemed to be crammed so full...

 _No!_ he told himself. He didn't - wouldn't - grudge the kid a few hours away from his sentinel's side, a few hours of relief from what had to be a stressful life as guide to a driven, duty-obsessed freak who had never learned how to express himself emotionally.

Or no; it would be more accurate to say 'who had never allowed himself to be emotionally vulnerable'. In this moment of desolate introspection, he could accept that for years after his mother walked out he hadn't allowed himself to like anyone more than superficially in case they, too, disappeared. Not that his father had encouraged him - or Steven - to care for anyone, and suddenly Jim wondered if his father, too, had 'switched off' emotionally after his wife's desertion.

But thinking back over the years, it seemed that everyone he had eventually begun to care for had deserted him. His men in Peru deserted him by dying. So had Jack Pendergrast. So too had Danny Choi. In a way - although Jim had... not exactly 'walked away' first, because the army had removed him from Peru - so had Incacha. Carolyn had walked out, just as his mother had done, but at least she had remained part of his life because they worked together, and somehow - Jim wasn't quite sure how - had stayed on friendly terms for some time - though eventually she too had moved away, taking a job in San Francisco. He was on friendly enough terms with his fellow detectives but chose not to allow himself to like them too much, just in case...

When Blair waltzed into his life Jim had been unprepared for the connection that had formed between them but, good friends though they had quickly become, Blair had always had an intermittently active social life. Sometimes it seemed as if he had no interests apart from grading tests and working with his sentinel; sometimes he hardly seemed to spent any time at all at home, whether he was dating or going to lectures or displays with his university friends.

This was one of those times. Jim had seen almost nothing of Blair apart from an hour or two a day at the PD for over two weeks now... and he was beginning to feel incredibly lonely.

He needed his guide...

***

Blair sat watching the film with barely-there interest. He would rather have been in the loft, sitting watching TV with Jim, but every now and then he began to wonder if he was - well, crowding Jim, and backed off for two or three weeks, pretending to be dating someone single-mindedly or going to evening lectures or displays at Rainier, arriving home after Jim had gone to bed and getting up barely in time to exchange a quick 'Morning!' before rushing off to Rainier even if he didn't have to be there until mid-morning. Oh, there were some lectures and displays, but not as many as he sometimes led Jim to believe... and none of his companions on those occasions was a potential romantic interest.

But what he was actually doing most of the time was spending lonely, boring evenings watching films in which he had no particular interest, then sitting in a bar somewhere for two or three hours, drinking apple juice. Oh, he led Jim to believe that he had had a great evening out with someone, but he was beginning to think he should make a list of the names of the imaginary people he was spending time with, just to keep track of them.

An imaginary social life... How sad was that?

Yet was that - this - so different from the life he had led as a child? Naomi had never spent particularly long anywhere, always moving on before he had time to form more than a casual near-friendship with anyone. Her own friendships had been intense but brief - the more intense, the shorter they were; the longest-lasting were the more lightweight ones. Indeed, she was still in occasional contact with one or two of those, people she had met briefly years previously.

And in his years at Rainier... he had been the youngest student in his year, too young - and really too clever - for the others to want to socialise with him. Back then he had let Naomi think he had plenty of friends, but in reality his fellow students had been the most casual of acquaintances. The nearest he had had to having a friend was Dr Stoddard; and wasn't it weird that his only 'friend' was one of his lecturers? Later, after getting his BA and MA, his work as a teaching fellow kept him too busy to have more than a superficial relationship with anyone, until he met Jim and his already full life became frenetic.

He knew Jim thought he had a lot of friends at Rainier, but he didn't. He projected a friendly image, he interacted well with others, but he had no friends; only acquaintances. The nearest thing he had to friends were Jim's fellow detectives, and Jim himself.

He shook his head, thinking of one lecture in the psychology class he had taken as a minor. The lecturer had stressed that humans were social animals, happiest living in 'herds', unhappy when they were alone.

At the time he had asked Dr Jeffries about 'loners', knowing that he was one although he was still unsure whether being mostly solitary (and not liking crowds) was innate or had been forced on him by circumstances. Dr Jeffries had agreed that some people did seem happier in small groups and had a greater tolerance than most for solitude. He had even cited something that Blair knew from his anthropology classes - that at one time thirty to forty adults, plus their children, was the average number of people living and working together, because more than that would have stretched the food resources where they lived too thin, and that for some people that was still the maximum number they were comfortable being with. But Jeffries still insisted that even those people wanted - needed - some companionship.

At the time, Blair had been unconvinced; but since meeting Jim, he had recognized what Jeffries meant.

He wanted Jim's company even when he didn't want anyone else's. But he had no certainty that Jim didn't sometimes get tired of _his_ company - hence his decision to absent himself from time to time, give Jim his space...

He had been doing that for nearly three weeks now. He could perhaps dip a toe in the water, go straight home tonight, say he had broken off his current 'romance' and see what Jim's reaction was?

As the credits appeared on the screen, he joined the line of people making their way out of the cinema and as he headed for his car he decided to go straight home, 'admit' to having broken off with... Oh, Goddess, who had he told Jim he was 'dating'?

Sharon! That was it. Sharon.

He drove home, climbed the stairs, hesitated for a moment then unlocked the door and went in.

"You're early," Jim said.

There was a note in his voice... A pleased note?

"I won't be seeing Sharon again," Blair said as he hung up his coat..

"What happened?" Jim asked.

"We... We agreed that we weren't really compatible. It - it was quite amicable." _Of course it was, since Sharon existed only in my imagination._

"Sorry about that." Was that actually an almost satisfied note in Jim's voice?

"I'm... beginning to think that dating isn't worth the effort," Blair went on, and was rewarded with a brief, very happy gleam - gone almost before he had time to register it - in Jim's eyes. He crossed to the sofa and sank into it, sitting closer to Jim than he normally did.  After a moment he felt an arm drape itself around his shoulders, and he leaned a little closer.

"I... I wouldn't mind if you stopped dating," Jim murmured.

"You wouldn't? You... you don't mind having me around all the time?"

Jim took a deep breath. "It's lonely without you."

Blair hesitated for the briefest of moments before admitting, "I'd rather be here with you than out with anyone else - but I was afraid I wasn't giving you enough privacy - "

"Chief, I've been afraid I wasn't giving _you_ enough privacy - goodness knows you don't get much, living with a sentinel."

Blair gave a wry chuckle. "I knew, when I moved in... It doesn't bother me."

Jim pulled him a little closer. Blair looked up at the smiling face so close to his and his lips parted just a fraction; Jim leaned down and brushed his lips over Blair's in an almost-kiss.

Blair's smile broadened. "Again?" he whispered.

The next kiss was more demanding and Blair reciprocated enthusiastically. "I love you!" he whispered.

"And I love you," Jim replied. He hesitated for a moment, then murmured, "Come to bed with me?"

"I think... from something Burton said, I think sentinel and guide are meant to be together - but I thought you wouldn't be comfortable knowing that."

"You're mine, Chief... now and always."

"Now and always," Blair agreed.

They took a minute to make sure everything was locked up and to visit the toilet; and then hand in hand they made their way upstairs to Jim's bed.


End file.
